MIT Wind Ensemble
Frederick Harris, Jr., Music Director
Kenneth Amis, Assistant Conductor
Special guests: Groton Hill Wind Ensemble
A unique amalgam of music and special lighting performed by the MIT Wind Ensemble, with works for full wind ensemble & brass, percussion, and woodwind chamber ensembles.
Music spanning the 16th century to the 21st is featured, including Symphony in B-flat, Hindemith’s landmark work for wind ensemble. The Groton Hill Wind Ensemble joins MITWE for a performance of John Barnes Chance’s Variations on a Korean Folk Song. Lighting design by MIT’s E33 Productions.
About the MIT Wind Ensemble
Founded by Music Director Dr. Frederick Harris, Jr. in the fall of 1999, the MIT Wind Ensemble (MITWE) is one of the most innovative ensembles of its kind. Comprised primarily of outstanding MIT undergraduates and graduate students studying a wide range of disciplines within science, engineering, and the humanities. Repertoire includes outstanding traditional works and new music for full wind ensemble, chamber winds, brass ensemble, percussion ensemble, and woodwind ensembles. MITWE has commissioned 45 original works from many prominent composers. MIT Affiliated Artist, renowned composer, and tuba player of the Empire Brass, Kenneth Amis, is the Assistant Conductor of MITWE.
MITWE has been featured on NPR and was the subject of the 2014 Emmy-winning documentary Awakening: Evoking the Arab Spring Through Music, aired on PBS. MITWE is also featured in the 2019 Emmy-nominated documentary The Great Clarinet Summit, and Call and Response: Creativity at MIT. MITWE’s joint recording with the MIT Festival Jazz Ensemble, Infinite Winds, received a five-star review from DownBeat and was chosen by the magazine as one of its “Best Albums of 2015 Five-Star Masterpieces” — the first such recognition of its kind for a collegiate wind ensemble. The Boston Globe called the recording “one of the most compelling of 2015.”
Throughout its 21-year history, MITWE has collaborated with elementary, middle and high school students throughout Massachusetts. In March of 2019, MITWE embarked on its first tour, spending a week in the Dominican Republic, presenting four concerts, many STEAM presentations for middle, high school and college students, and premiering the eco-music piece In Praise Of The Humpback.
In May of 2020, MITWE had the honor of opening MIT’s virtual Commencement with To The Light, To The Flame. MITWE also participated in MIT’s 2021 virtual Commencement, performing Diary Of A Pandemic Year.
About the Directors
Dr. Frederick Harris, Jr. is the Director of Wind and Jazz Ensembles at MIT, where he serves at Music Director of the MIT Wind Ensemble, MIT Festival Jazz Ensemble, and oversees jazz chamber music programs including three combos, MIT Vocal Jazz Ensemble, and the Emerson Jazz Scholars Program.
He and the MIT Wind Ensemble have been featured on PBS in the 2014 Emmy-winning documentary Awakening: Evoking the Arab Spring through Music, with music by Jamshied Sharifi. Harris and his students also are featured in the 2018 Emmy-winning documentary Imagination Off The Charts: Jacob Collier Comes to MIT.
He is a strong advocate for the creation and performance of new music, having commissioned and/or premiered 93 works for wind, jazz, and mixed ensembles, recently leading pieces by Jamshied Sharifi, Chick Corea, Don Byron, Jacob Collier, and Miguel Zenón. He has also been highly active with public school students and music educators throughout his career. Harris is the author of Conducting with Feeling and Seeking the Infinite: The Musical Life of Stanisław Skrowaczewski, and currently writing a biography of Herb Pomeroy. He has performed as a drummer with the Aardvark Jazz Orchestra, John Harbison, the Boston Pops, and Grammy-winning jazz saxophonist Joe Lovano.
Nominated by his students, Harris is a 2013 and 2019 recipient of the James A. and Ruth Levitan Award for Excellence in Teaching in the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences at MIT.
World renowned composer-performer, Kenneth Amis, enjoys an international career of high acclaim. Mr. Amis began his musical exploits in his home country of Bermuda. He began playing the piano at a young age and upon entering high school took up the tuba and developed an interest in performing and writing music. A Suite for Bass Tuba, composed when he was only fifteen, marked his first published work. A year later, at age sixteen, he enrolled in Boston University where he majored in composition. After graduating from Boston University, he attended the New England Conservatory of Music where he received his master’s degree in composition.
As a tuba player, Mr. Amis has performed as a soloist with the English Chamber Orchestra and has been a member of the Tanglewood Festival Orchestra and the New World Symphony Orchestra. His performance skills are showcased on many commercial records distributed internationally. Mr. Amis is presently the tuba player of the Empire Brass and the Palm Beach Opera Orchestra, the assistant conductor for the MIT Wind Ensemble, a performing artist for Besson instruments, and on the faculties of Boston University, the Boston Conservatory of Music, Longy School of Music and the Conservatory at Lynn University.
An active composer, Amis has been commissioned over a dozen times and has written for many organizations including the New England Conservatory Wind Ensemble, Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra of Boston, the University of Scranton, the College Band Directors National Association, the Boston Classical Orchestra, and a consortium of twenty universities and music organizations. His music is published by Subito Corp., Boosey & Hawkes, Inc. and through his own company, Amis Musical Circle, which can be found at www.AmisMusicalCircle.com.
He has been commissioned by such groups as the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Academy of Music Symphonic Winds, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and the National Arts Center Orchestra of Ottawa. In 2003 Mr. Amis became the youngest recipient of New England Conservatory of Music’s “Outstanding Alumni Award.”
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